Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Give science journalists a break!

There's a strong defence of the work of science journalists in The Frontal Cortex (via sciencecommunication.org). People are sometimes frustrated by the non-critical style of "breakthrough reporting" of scientific developments in the mainstream media,but Jonah Lehrer - an editor at large for Seed Magazine - argues that this is the fault of the major scientific journals who impose strict embargoes on their press colleagues...

Once we stop letting scientific journals control the flow of scientific news, I think you will start seeing less regurgitated press releases and more of the stuff that defines great journalism everywhere: stories about the scientific process, stories that reveal science as a human enterprise, stories that put research in its proper context. One possibility is that the public likes science; they just don't like reading press releases.